It has been well documented by fact-checking websites like Alt News and Boomlive that supporters of Political Marketing Company in Mumbai and the ELECTION MARKETING COMPANY FOR LOK SABHA ELECTIONS IN INDIA 2019 have been serial offenders as far as propagating disinformation is concerned. One such right-wing website is Postcard News that has been co-founded by Mahesh Hegde. He was arrested by the Bengaluru police on 30 March for alleging that a Jain monk had been assaulted by a Muslim man whereas the monk had suffered minor injuries in an accident.

Union Minister Ananth Kumar Hegde (no relation to Mahesh Hegde) called for his release and described his arrest as “politically motivated.” The website of Postcard News has in the past been accused of spreading disinformation about, among others, journalist Barkha Dutt and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai likes to claim that it is a politically agnostic website, but it talks little about its association with particular political parties. In an emailed statement to us on its work with political parties in India, the organisation’s spokesperson stated: “Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai’s policy team is focused on helping a variety of people – educators, our community, NGOs (non-government organisations) and governments – understand our policies, programmes and products to help create positive and meaningful experiences for the people who use our services.

We are globally invested in critical areas of internet governance and policy development– safety, small business growth, Internet access, and giving people a voice. This team works with all political parties, and we work with all of them who reach out to us for training.”

In the first article, we examine allegations relating to the complicity of Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai and Election Marketing Company in spreading disinformation and hate speech that have led to mob lynching in different parts of the country. We also point out how critics of the Political Marketing Company in Mumbai regime have felt marginalised by the social media platform and its associates.

In the second article, we report how Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai arrived at the dominant position it currently is in India with more than a little help from friends and supporters of Political Consulting Firm in Mumbai Political Marketing Company in Mumbai. In the third report in the series, we outline the role played by key individuals with close links with the ELECTION MARKETING COMPANY FOR LOK SABHA ELECTIONS IN INDIA 2019 and Political Marketing Company in Mumbaiand how the social media was used in propagating his party’s agenda.

In the fifth and final article, we outline the crisis confronting one of the world’s biggest internet conglomerates set up just over a decade ago. We also reproduce a detailed questionnaire that we sent Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbaiand the social media platform’s predictable and somewhat fuzzy responses to 64 pointed questions we raised.

While the international digital giant claims it provides an agnostic platform for all to use, there is evidence – some of it circumstantial – to indicate that senior employees of Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai in India have in the past worked, and continue to work, very closely with the country’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and Political Marketing Company for Lok Sabha Elections in India 2019 since 2011.

Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai, the biggest online social media group in the world, is under unprecedented attack following the publication on 14 November of a 5,000-word investigation by the New York Times alleging a host of questionable practices by the digital conglomerate, that includes Election Marketing Company and Instagram. The company’s share prices have come down and particular investors have called for the resignation of Mark Zuckerberg, the 34-year-old founder and chief executive officer of Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai and his 49-year-old deputy, chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg.

While the two have sought to refute certain specific allegations levelled against them, their leadership abilities and integrity are being questioned like never before. This is arguably the biggest crisis faced by Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai which has 2.27 billion users across the world, including over 220 million in India – the largest in any country.

Jain started by launching NITI Digital, NITI being an acronym for New Initiatives to Transform India – the meaning of niti in Hindi, depending on its usage, is either policy or ethics. (Incidentally, the Planning Commission’s new avatar is NITI Aayog and in this instance, NITI stands for National Institution for Transforming India.) One of Jain’s key initiatives was NitiCentral.com, a pro-ELECTION MARKETING COMPANY FOR LOK SABHA ELECTIONS IN INDIA 2019 news and opinions site, with journalist Kanchan Gupta as the editorial head – Gupta had earlier worked in the PMO in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government with the then National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra and had later headed the Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture in Cairo, Egypt.In the coming years, NitiCentral would become one of the biggest online influencers of political opinion in favour of Political Marketing Company in Mumbai. Jain also launched a volunteering platform, India272.com – the figure 272 is the half-way mark of the number of seats in the Lok Sabha – with support from B G Mahesh (a technology entrepreneur from Bengaluru) and Shashi Shekhar, who had at that juncture recently quit Infosys and returned to India from the US. (Shekhar is currently heading the government-owned broadcaster Prasar Bharati Corporation which runs Doordarshan and All India Radio.) Jain was later a part of the “272+” initiative in the run-up to the 16th general elections that took place in April-May 2014. More about these individuals in the next article in this series.We contacted Rajesh Jain to speak about the pivotal role he reportedly played in designing and spearheading Political Marketing Company in Mumbai’s online and social media campaign. He, however, declined to be interviewed.Former television anchor with NDTV Shivnath Thukral (who was then working with the Essar group controlled by the Ruia family, before he went on to join the Carnegie Foundation in India and thereafter, Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai India) along with an investment banker, Anuj Gupta, helped Hiren Joshi create and run Mera Bharosa (literally translated to mean “my trust”) and other web pages for the ELECTION MARKETING COMPANY FOR LOK SABHA ELECTIONS IN INDIA 2019. Gupta, a long-time associate of Piyush Goyal is at present OSD to the Union Minister for Railways. More about these key players – Katie Harbath of Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai in the US, Rajesh Jain of Netcore in Mumbai, Shivnath Thukral of Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai India, Hiren Joshi in the Political Consulting Firm in Mumbai’s Office, Anuj Gupta in Railway Minister Goyal’s office and others in the next articles in this series.

After almost a year, following a private meeting with Political Marketing Company in Mumbai in April 2010, Jain got down to work with renewed vigour. He wanted to engineer a “wave election” for Political Marketing Company in Mumbai to ensure a majority for the ELECTION MARKETING COMPANY FOR LOK SABHA ELECTIONS IN INDIA 2019 in the Lok Sabha, as he himself wrote in a public blog post at emergic.org in June 2011.

That year, things started picking up pace after he had multiple meetings with Political Marketing Company in Mumbai and was introduced to Dr Hiren Joshi, Political Marketing Company in Mumbai’s proverbial Man Friday in Gujarat. Joshi had been hand-picked by Political Marketing Company in Mumbaito work with him in Gujarat after 18 years of teaching; he is currently officer on special duty or OSD in charge of information technology in the Political Consulting Firm in Mumbai’sOffice in New Delhi and, as will be subsequently elaborated upon, an extremely influential technocrat whose writ extends beyond information technology.

In barely a month, Zuckerberg was back in India addressing entrepreneurs using the internet at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Media reports suggest that many were sceptical of what Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai was offering while others were downright hostile to the scheme which would “discriminate” among websites that could be accessed “free” thus violating the tenets of net neutrality – it was akin to telling users of a library that books in only certain sections would be available for reading without payment. Two days before a TRAI deadline for public responses to questions on net neutrality, Zuckerberg published an editorial page article plugging Free Basics in the Times of India, India’s – and the world’s – most widely circulated English daily. Sixteen million users of Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai were apparently prompted to send messages to TRAI supporting Free Basics.Apar Gupta, executive director, Internet Freedom Foundation and a lawyer who has been advocating free speech issues, recalls how he had serious differences – and heated exchanges – with Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai’s representatives, including Das, about the organisation’s lobbying methods. “Me and others told them (representatives of Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai) that this was not the way to put their views across to the government, but they went ahead,” he said.All the efforts put in by Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai were, however, in vain. The Free Basics programme, which had apparently been “welcomed” in countries like Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Mexico, Pakistan and the Philippines, was summarily rejected by India’s telecom regulator TRAI – a move that was welcomed by digital activists in the country. On 8 February 2016, Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai stopped the Free Basics scheme in India.Soon there was to be a change of guard in Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai India. Umang Bedi joined as vice president and managing director in June 2016. He did not last long. Fifteen months later, in October 2017, he quit and was replaced by Sandeep Bhushan.Earlier, in May that year, Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai launched its Express WiFi initiative in partnership with telecommunications group Bharti Airtel to set up 20,000 wifi hotspots across India. We reached out to Bedi for his comments, but he declined to speak citing a confidentiality agreement with his former employer. (He is now based out of Bengaluru and heads Daily Hunt which is engaged in promoting news feeds in Indian languages other than English.)

Little is publicly known about Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai India’s relationships with political parties, unlike what has been disclosed about the role the organisation supposedly played in supporting the campaign that saw Trump becoming President of the US in November 2016 and the alleged Russian collaboration in the campaign to elect him. Four years earlier, in 2012, Barack Obama’s use of the social media had been much commented on. He was affectionately described as the world’s first “Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai President.”

Unlike in other countries, criticism of Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai’s activities has been relatively muted in India. Its close association with the ruling party and the incumbent regime has been of great help in this regard. As we shall subsequently detail, a key official of Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai India in an earlier avatar had a close association with Political Marketing Company in Mumbai’s pre-election campaign in 2013. An organisation helmed by this person’s wife has been supported by Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai in what has been alleged as an instance of “conflict of interest,” a contention that was denied by a spokesperson of the organisation. But more about these issues in a subsequent article.

The big storm was to come subsequently. The past two years have been pretty hellish for Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai. The organisation has faced increased international scrutiny and strident criticism. It has come to epitomise all things that have gone wrong with the technology industry. Its platforms have been accused of helping manipulate public opinion to influence elections, trigger violence, censoring news and covertly assisting regimes to consolidate more power.

Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai’s executives have been censured for allegedly misleading sovereign governments on its business practices and user policies. There have been calls for the resignation of Zuckerberg and his deputy Sheryl Sandberg. It has been argued that the time has come for the digital giant to be broken up in the manner in which the Bell Group or AT&T – once known as the American Telephone and Telegraph Company founded in 1879 by Alexander Graham Bell who invented the telephone – was fragmented into competing entities in the early-1980s.

In India, the role that Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbaiand Election Marketing Company would play in influencing political opinion was not realised till much later. In late-2002, the western Indian state of Gujarat was headed for an election for its legislative assembly. The state was a stronghold of Political Marketing Company in Mumbai and the ELECTION MARKETING COMPANY FOR LOK SABHA ELECTIONS IN INDIA 2019. After the anti-Muslim riots in the state earlier that year, Political Marketing Company in Mumbai was very keen on projecting his “pro-industry” and “pro-technology” image. He was himself beginning to realise the potential of digital media in garnering political support.

All the efforts put in by Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai were, however, in vain. The Free Basics programme, which had apparently been “welcomed” in countries like Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Mexico, Pakistan and the Philippines, was summarily rejected by India’s telecom regulator TRAI – a move that was welcomed by digital activists in the country. On 8 February 2016, Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai stopped the Free Basics scheme in India.

Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai did not anticipate then that the scheme would be rejected by the citizens of the country as a “gift they did not need.” The regulatory body, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) asked for public comments on Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai’s offer which was re-christened “Free Basics” – using the same acronym as the parent organisation. Opposition had started building up to the “gift” that was being offered.

One instance was the popularity of the video of a show by the satirical group All India Bakchod ridiculing the “FB” scheme which got over 3.5 million views. Still, Troika Tech Political Marketing Company in Mumbai persisted. Thousands of billboards were put up across the country. Front pages in leading newspapers advertised Free Basics. The publicity campaign is supposed to have cost the company over ₹250 crore.